IMPACT INFO

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Personal Development and How to Grow Fast or Die Slow

December 21st, 2018

Written by, Melissa Telecky

Be All In, Be Excellent, Be Authentic, Be Fun, Win, and Grow Fast… 6 core values that encompass the IMPACT culture. It’s what makes us who we are as a whole and influences our everyday decisions and actions. However, if you were to ask an IMPACT team member which Core Value is the most meaningful and essential and why…. it is with an utmost guarantee that not one answer will be identical! So, without further ado, please allow me to provide my own personal stance on such an inquiry— Grow Fast or Die Slow.

Grow Fast, as a Core Value, by far excites and resonates with me the most! GROWTH is a never-ending journey, it is a striving for continuous progress that can (and with the right intention will) result in limitless possibilities. But, how do we reach such limitless possibilities? Personal Development. That’s right, investing in yourself! As was notably quoted by Warren Buffet, “The most important investment you can make is in yourself. Nobody can take away what you’ve got in yourself, and everybody has potential they haven’t used yet.”

If we are not growing, we are wasting away, we are failing behind the 8 ball…. “Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.” (Norman Mailer). Growth is essential for progression, essential for existence, and essential for exploration (whether that is in an entrepreneurial, professional, personal or literal geographic sense.) It is a necessity to tap into the unknown threshold of one’s abilities and to achieve unimaginable results!

However, growing fast and achieving big things, won’t be easy. It will be a road very few have traveled, but it will be worth it. “Nothing worth having comes easy” (Theodore Roosevelt). With that in mind, below are a few guidelines I have learned from those who inspire me and who I look up to; my past and present coaches and mentors.

A Guide to Growth and Personal Development:

Live outside your comfort zone. This is how you know you are growing, what makes you feel those growing pains! When we are comfortable, we are dying, we are falling behind. On that note, make fear your friend, turn your fears into curiosity. “Live a life driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear” (Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert).

If you are the smartest person in the room…. Get Out! Surround yourself with those who influence you, those you can learn from.

Identify, focus and master the ONE (or two) thing that will drive you to achieve your goal and success, everything else will fall into place like a domino effect. To help achieve this, I highly suggest reading The ONE Thingby Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan.

Be a life long learner! Just accept it now, you will never, ever, EVER know everything or enough, no matter who you are! If we don’t continuously learn and study the world around us, we will fall behind the times and this, my friend, is how history repeats itself.

Raise the bar high. Always reach higher than what you think you can. Think Big. Don’t let your fear to prevent you from achieving what you think is unimaginable.

What you do today matters for tomorrow! You never know where today’s habits and actions can take you in the future. When future success presents itself, it’s because of yesterday’s – or weeks, years, or even decades worth of efforts. “You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut” Stephen R. Covey, author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Don’t be afraid to fail; failure is imperative to learning! Every high achieving, fast growing person has failed a million and a half times; failing is how we learn until we get it right!

Finally, I will leave you with this, my favorite quote of all time:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails” —Mark Twain